July 11, 2019

Trump Caves In, Won’t Put Citizenship Question on 2020 Census

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President Trump is caving in to the Supreme Court. That’s too bad. I was hoping to watch the show. Instead he’s doing this:

Trump himself is typically incoherent trying to explain what this is all about, but Attorney General Bill Barr explained that they hope to use this information for apportionment. That is, they presumably want to apportion members of Congress by number of citizens per state, not number of residents. This is going to be tough sledding given the clear wording of the 14th Amendment:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.

It says persons, not citizens, and the framers of the 14th Amendment clearly knew the difference. I suppose the Trumpies could try arguing that “Indians not taxed” really means “anyone not taxed,” and that “not taxed” means “not paying income tax” even though the income tax hadn’t been invented at the time. Other than that, I’m not sure how they could argue for apportionment based on citizens instead of residents. But that’s probably just because I’m not being creative enough.

Alternatively, Republicans could leave overall apportionment alone but try to draw congressional districts based on citizens, not residents. This would open up new avenues for gerrymandering that, for example, would probably keep Texas red for a while longer. The Supreme Court has previously signaled that it might be open to this kind of thing.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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